Club Planet Interview: GLADIATOR

by Danielle Desmond

06.14.2014

Dan Goodman and Ian Johnson are just two brahs from L.A. – except together, as their alias, gLAdiator (get it?), they are making some of the most innovatively trill, genre-bending beats under the bass umbrella. Just take a good look at the tracklist for their latest mix at the bottom of this page. Their love of the Lakers and all things Mila Kunis fuels their productive fire with the aim of making crowds across the country turn up.

gLAdiator's set at Mysteryland was off the hook; a brilliant mixture of bass, trap, even house. It was perfectly ratchet. We had the opportunity to speak with the masterminds, might I add two of the most down-to-earth artists I have ever had the pleasure of speaking with, right before they went balls-to-the-wall on the Boat stage. gLAdiator and LOUDPVCK also threw down a set as their side project, gLAdPVCK.

Who are you looking forward to most seeing tonight?

I think the Dillstradamus thing should be fun. I gotta see some Kaskade, and MOBY!! He's AMAZING, a legend, a literal LEGEND.

How was your set?

It was a lot of fun.

Terrible. awful. (Dan) Haha, no it was great! I really enjoyed it.

Ian- This was something we had been looking forward to for a few months now. It was awesome. The crowd was good. All our homies were there. A lot of planning a lot of adjustment, it was really good.

How was the flow? How did you decide upon the tracks you were going to play?

We're big believers in playing a lot of different kinds of music. So we really try to work our set in a way that we can play the most genres, the most BPMs, the most speeds and tempos, and still have a well flowing set, so it doesn't feel like it's not too all over the place but it doesn't get too stagnant. We try to put a lot of variety in there. Especially in a festival setting like this where you have a lot of artists playing one after another, especially a lot of people's music that we play, you have to get a little more creative because you can't play people's stuff right after you or right before you. You know it makes it a little more exciting, a little more of a challenge.

The Pro Nails remix with Rusko...that's definitely one of my favorite throwbacks in the set. That and classic Snoop Dogg 'Drop It Like It's Hot' - that was an edit that we made for basically the festival season. We completely re-do the set once every two months, and for the festival season, we sat down heavily and put together like three different sets, and that was a part that I really excited about. We're all about variety. You have to have a few bangers but not all bangers.

You guys just had an EP come out on Fool's Gold Records [Assembly Line]...how has that made you feel? What type of reaction did you get?

That was our first real label release so we were excited about that, and the response we've gotten so far has been pretty great. So we are happy people like it as much as we do!

My favorite response thus far, hands down was we got an out-of-the-blue email from Bassnectar! Saying 'guys just wanted to say, love the new EP, 'Work' has got to be one of my favorite tracks.' We were both like what is this shit! Little things like that, man, just wow. We put a lot of time and work into making this EP be the best it could be for us. The best body of work that we could really put out. And I think this was our first major release that got the kind of attention from other artists that we really wanted. We love hearing from fans, and that means the world to us, but hearing it from a producer that knows exactly what you are doing...and Bassnectar...that was incredibly special to us.

Who are some of the people that were your main influencers that got you into the game?

Gotta say Justice, gotta say Boys Noize. A-Trak, Dada Life, Crookers, obviously, we saw them at Avalon the first time they played in L.A. and oh my God it was insane! NO ONE WAS THERE! Dada Life was just chilling at the bar. Oh and Bart B More. Legend. When I first started listening to this kind of music, 2007 'Cross' was where it started started, where it was like okay, alright, word, time to go back and do some history, time to go download every Daft Punk album. Gotta look up some Kraftwerk, who's this Moby fella'. Just going through literally everything at that point. I think Justice was the spark but I think it's really been a little bit of everything. I think Ian and I really pride ourselves on diversity and when it comes to playing music and making music, we try to do everything different whenever we can, as much as possible. With that we really try to take influences from everybody.

Also huge shout-out to Gary Richards: YOU ARE THE MAN.

Anything else you'd like to say to your fans? Or anything else in general?

Wear ear plugs and drink water. You will love yourself in the future if you just wear earplugs and drink water. We love our fans and would be nothing without you.

You can stream and download gLAdiator’s new Vol. 03 Ep. 004 mix below. These boys love to give away their music for free, and who doesn't love free music?

“This is a mix of my favorite tracks that got me into raving plus some of the newest festi-worthy bangers. Enjoy!" -gLAdiator